Andrews University Semina~yStudies, Autumn 1994, Vol. 32, No. 3, 247-251
Copyright 1994 by Andrews University Press.
Q
SARGON'S AZEKAH INSCRIPTION: THE EARLIEST
EXTRABIBLICAL REFERENCE TO THE SABBATH?
WILLIAM H. SHEA
Biblical Research Institute
Silver Spring, MD 20904
The Azekah Text
The "Azekah Text," so called because of the Judahite site attacked
in its record, is an Assyrian text of considerable historical significance
because of its mention of a military campaign to Philistia and Judah.'
In this article I review the question of the date of the tablet and
examine a line which may be the earliest extrabiblical reference to the
Sabbath.
In this tablet the king reports his campaign to his god. An
unusual feature of this text is the name of the god upon whom the
Assyrian king calls: Anshar, the old Babylonian god who was
syncretized with the Assyrian god Assur. This name was rarely used by
Assyrian kings, and then only at special times and in specific types of
texts, by Sargon and Sennacherib.
The text is badly broken. In fact, until 1974 its two fragments
were attributed to two different kings, Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon.
In that year, Navad Na'aman joined the two pieces, showing that they
once belonged to. the same tablet.'
When Na'aman made the join between the two fragments, he
attributed the combined text to Sennacherib, largely on the basis of
linguistic comparison^.^ Because the vocabulary of the text was similar
to the language used in Sennacherib's inscriptions, Na'aman argued that
Sennacherib was the author. However, since Sennacherib immediately
followed Sargon on the throne, it would be natural to expect that the
'A detailed study of the text is given by Navad Na'aman, "Sennacherib's 'Letter to
God' on His Campaign to Judah," BASOR (1974): 25-38,
ZIbid., 2628.
31bid.,30-31.
248
WILLIAM H. SHEA
mode of expression would be similar. In all likelihood some of Sargon's
scribes continued to work under Sennacherib, using the same language.
Since Na'aman attributed the text to Sennacharib, and knew of
only one western campaign of that king, he identified the text as a
description of the western campaign of 701 B.C. While that identification was feasible, the reference to two cities taken in that campaign
was hardly specific enough to firmly establish the connection.
Given that indistinct connection, I proposed, mainly on the basis
of the divine name of Anshar in the text, that this record came from a
second western campaign, conducted some time after Sennacherib's
conquest of Babylon in 689 B.C. and before Hezekiah's death in 686
B.c.'
Since Sennacherib used the divine name of Anshar only in texts
written after the fall of Babylon in 689 B.c.,it appeared that the Azekah
text provided strong evidence for a second western campaign. Although
he criticized my specific date for this text, Frank J. Yurco still followed
Na'aman in his attribution of the text to Senna~herib.~
The discussion regarding the specific date of this text within the
reign of Sennacherib is now irrelevant, for G. Galil has demonstrated
quite convincingly that the text does not belong to Sennacherib at all,
but to his predecessor S a r g ~ n All
. ~ future discussions of this text should
start from this beginning point. With Sargon as author, the date of the
tablet cannot be so late as 701 B.C. , during the reign of Sennacherib,
much less as late as the date I had proposed, 689-686 B.C
l%e Historical Context
The evidence for redating this text to the time of Sargon comes
from the ~ h r a s ewhich located Azekah ina birit misriya u mat jattdi,
"between my border and the land of J ~ d a h . "Here
~ we have the border
of an Assyrian province, not the border of a vassal city-state. The
political arrangement here reflected was instituted on the western border
'William H. Shea, "Sennacherib's Second Palestinian Campaign," JBL 104 (1985):
401-418. The idea of the second campaign is based on tensions between different parts of
the biblical narrative that deal with these matters and tensions between the biblical text
and the entry in Sennacherib's annals. For earlier literature on this subject, see H. H.
Rowley, Men of God (London: Nelson, 1963), 107-108.
'Frank J. Yurco, "The Shabaka-Shebitku Coregency and the Supposed Second
Campaign of Sennacherib against Judah: A Critical Assessment," JBL (110) 1991: 35-45.
6G. Galil, "Judah and Assyria in the Sargonid Period," Zion 57 (1992): 111-133
(Hebrew); his work is known to me only through the author's English abstract published
in OM Testament Abstracts 15 (Feb. 1993): 41.
'Na'aman, 26-27.
SARGON'S AZEKAH INSCRIPTION
249
of Judah for the first time when Sargon conquered Ashdod in 712, but
this lasted only until the end of Sargon's reign in 705.
When Sennacherib arrived in Phoenicia in 701, and before he
campaigned in Philistia and Judah, Ashdod's vassal king Mitinti came
~
was evidently already a
to Phoenicia to offer him t r i b ~ t e . Ashdod
vassal state, rather than still part of an Assyrian province, or Mitinti
would not have been summoned to carry out such an act of obeisance.
If Ashdod had still belonged to the ~ s s ~ r i province,
an
the Assyrian
governor and not the local king would have reported to Sennacherib.
For these reasons, Galil correctly noted, "It is therefore clearly
impossible to see the 'Azekah 1nsc;iptionY as describing ~ennacherib's
campaign to the west in 701.n9 However, Galil stopped short of
determining the date of the campaign reported in the text.
The main target of Sargon's attack in 712 was Ashdod. In
recording his victory over Azuri of Ashdod, Sargon stated: "I besieged
(and) conquered the cities of Ashdod, Gath, and Asdudimmu."l0
Asdudimmu was the port city of Ashdod-Yam and was a natural target
for conquest, along with Ashdod, a short distance inland. After conquering-these tw; coastal cities, Sargon turned inland and attacked
another Philistine site, Gath. This city provides the correlation needed
to interpret the Azekah text, now redated to Sargon.
he second section of the surviving portionof the tablet tells of
the king's attack upon ". . . a royal city of Philistia which Hezekiah had
captured and strengthened for himself."'l Since Na'aman republished
the text, Gath has been suggested as the name of the Philistine city lost
from the tablet.12 Undoubtedly, Gath fits well into the history of the
campaign of 712 B.C.
Thus far we have pieced together the conquest of Ashdod,
mentioned in Sargon's annals and his Display Inscription, and that of
Gath, mentioned in the Display Inscription and the Azekah text. These
correlations fit well, but what about Azekah? This was a site in Judah,
and there is no evidence that Sargon's troops penetrated Judah all at
this time.
'2Na'aman,35. At one time I suggested Lachish as that site, as it had been given
to Philistia by Sennacherib in 701; such an identification is not now possible. See William
H. Shea, "Sennacherib's Description of Lachish and of Its Conquest,"AUSS 26 (1988): 171180.
250
WILLIAM H. SHEA
Sargon's goal seems to have been to incorporate the city of Gath
into the newly established province of Philistia. But by attacking Gath,
Sargon would have risked the intervention of Hezekiah, who had
extended himself outside his borders and had fortified Gath. Sargon
solved his problem by attacking the nearest Judahite fort that could
have provided aid to the besieged city of Gath. That border site was
Azekah, right up the Sorek Valley from Gath. The text tells first of the
attack on Azekah, then of the attack on the Philistine city. That
Sargon did not intend to invade Judah is clear from the fact that he
made no further move against Judah after attacking Azekah.
The course of Sargon's campaign of 712 has now been clarified by
piecing together references to the campaign from the annals, the Display
Inscription, and the Azekah text. The main target of the attack was the
rebellious Ashdod. After conquering that city, Sargon mopped up the
adjacent port city of Ashdod-Yam. Then he turned inland to Gath, to
flesh out his new Assyrian province. Since Gath was occupied by
troops from Judah, he first insured that no assistance would be forthcoming from Judah by attacking the border fort of Azekah. With Gath
isolated from support or assistance from Judah, especially from the
nearby fort of Azekah, Sargon was able to take the city. After accomplishing his purpose, he returned to his capital in Assyria, where the
record of his feats was put on display.
"His Seventh"
With the help of the Azekah text the conquest of Gath can be
securely dated to 712 B.C. Thus we can turn to specific details of that
text. Of special importance is the record of the final assault on Gath.
That this was a formidable task is evident from the fact that the
Assyrians had to build a siege ramp to enter the city and take it from
its stubborn Judahite defenders. That final breakthrough from the siege
ramp took place "in his seventh (time)" or ina 7-{ti. After this reference
in line 19, the text describes the destruction of the city and the carrying
off of its booty.
The question then is, What is this reference to ina 7-G, or "his
seventh (time)"? Na'aman did not discuss this part of the text; he only
translated it. His linguistic and interpretive comments skip from line
18 to 20, omitting any reference to this line.') First of all, whatever it
was, this "seven" belonged to Hezekiah, not to Sargon. This is shown
by the possessive pronominal suffix {ti, "his," attached to the proper
name. What "seven" did Hezekiah possess, on which Sargon's troops
SARGON'S AZEKAH INSCRIPTION
25 1
could conquer one of his cities? The Sabbath immediately comes to
mind. In the Azekah text, Sargon is bragging that he had conquered
the city of Gath from Hezekiah's troops on Hezekiah's seventh-day
Sabbath.
One might ask whether the "seven" might be a sabbatical year, not
the weekly Sabbath. With the text firmly anchored to Sargon and the
year 712 B.c., the possibility is basically ruled out. Working back from
Roman and postexilic inscriptions and literary references, Ben Zion
Wacholder has compiled a complete table of sabbatical years as far back
as 513 B.c." Reckoning from that time backwards requires only simple
computations which reveal that the sabbatical years of the late eighth
century fell in 716 and 709 B.C. Assuming that the calculations are
correct, 712 would not have been a sabbatical year and Sargon's
reference to Hezekiah's "seven" should be taken as a reference to the
Sabbath day.
Sargon's attack against the Jews on their Sabbath makes very good
military sense. In fact, the tactic of attacking the Jews on the Sabbath
day is well documented in later times.I5 The occurrence recorded by
Sargon is the earliest known mention of such a ploy. This inscription
also gives us what appears to be the earliest extrabiblical mention of the
Sabbath.
ex en
Zion Wacholder, "The Calendar of Sabbatical Cycles during the Second
Temple and the Early Rabbinic Period," HUG4 44 (1993): 155.
15Alger F. Johns, "The Military Strategy of Sabbath Attacks on the Jews," VT 13
(1963): 482-486.